Introduction

This book seeks to highlight the importance of developing a comparative understanding of discourses about audiences. The focus is on discourse, as distinct from the complementary and more usual focus on audience composition, interpretation, and practices. We examine terms — comparative “keywords” (Williams 1976) one might say — and the discourses of which they are a part in cultures across the globe. But it is not simply an exercise in translation, nor simply a study of audiences. It is also a concerted effort to grasp the construction of meanings and power across diverse cultural contexts.